Amidst the serene greens of the Duke Golf Club, matched a bit unevenly with the varied colors of autumn brooding above the ground, a fall breeze balancing a radiant sun, it was easy to lose focus on the business at hand-the Duke Golf Classic.
The Duke Classic concluded Monday with a surging Blue Devil team that crept into second place alongside Augusta State and Virginia Tech with a 16-over-par 880. Duke consistently improved from the first round Sunday, when it shot a 301, by shooting a 290 in the second round and a 289 in the final round.
North Carolina State won the tournament outright with a 12-over-par 876 amid a field of 18 teams from across the nation.
"It's our home court," sophomore Leif Olson said. "I think it's so much of an advantage to us as a team that we get to play a course we play a hundred times a year. We always want to win these tournaments, but you have to look at those positives."
Coach Rod Myers was also disappointed that Duke didn't come out as strong earlier on its home course, but saw plenty to be happy about by the end of the tournament.
"Certainly, coming in here, I think we would have liked to have won it." he said. "With all the good teams, we got off to a really slow start in round one. We played very solid golf in round two and then couldn't quite finish the golf course. We had a great finish, but we were playing 6-under-par the last nine holes. When you play that kind of golf, you've got to be happy with it."
Even the Wolfpack could not beat Duke in the final round, as N.C. State shot a collective 290 to the Blue Devils' 289. The final round saw Olson start off tied for second place, but it was junior Matt Krauss who surged Monday, firing a 5-under-par 67.
After a rough first round score of 76 Sunday, Krauss managed to shoot par later in the day with a 72. He said patience allowed him to come out Monday and explode to a tie for fourth place.
"I just kind of had a mental lapse," Krauss said. "I had actually played really well in the practice round. So I knew I was playing well. I came out on the first day, wasn't paying as close attention, wasn't making as many putts and kind of screwed myself with that."
Olson, who started off with a 69 on Sunday's first round, then fell in the later rounds, recording a 73 followed by a 75 in Monday's final round. The Duke sophomore was satisfied overall, but had hoped to improve on his numbers, as he finished the tournament second among Duke players and tied for seventh overall.
"I'm satisfied," he said. "I finished top 10, which is not too bad. I just had a couple holes out there where I really played poorly this week. It's kind of disappointing when you look back on that. But in general, I thought I had a pretty good tournament."
In the field of 90 players, no member of the Duke team finished below 55th place. Both Myers and Krauss said that if the Blue Devils can develop depth and consistently utilize that depth, they will be in position to succeed later in the fall and in the spring.
"If we're going to be successful in the long run, we've got to have the depth," Myers said. "The best teams in the country are going to be deep through five. I'm talking about the top two or three teams. Right now, we'd really like to be deep through three, meaning we have three guys with the capabilities of winning a tournament."
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